You, Your Child and Music

Book excerpt: Pianist, author, lecturer and beloved teacher, Barbara Schneiderman shows how parent and child can come together around the joys of making music. This book is both playful and profound, clearly describing how to engage and transform children of all ages into lovers of music--listening and performing. Chapters range from ways to inspire beginning students to detailed analysis of music theory and composition. They reflect the author's remarkable career, which began when she performed on the radio at age 11. An admiring listener recommended her to Sydney Foster, the first of several renowned teachers, including Horazio Frugoni, Walter Piston, and Aube Tzerko. She conducted a "Musical Nursery" for the children of graduate students in the living room of her married student apartment at Harvard. She went on to provide private lessons to award-winning students in both the Suzuki and traditional system. Her master classes were in great demand around the country. Barbara gained degrees from Harvard, the Royal Academy in London, and the University of California San Diego, and enjoyed a long career of amateur and professional chamber music recitals. An earlier book, Confident Music Performance: The Art of Preparing, is considered a classic in the field.